Complications On The Average Love Story
by Feilyn
Summary: It's your average love story. It just happens to involve three people. Sometimes Sakura wonders how her life turned out so complicated. Usually she remembers that she prefers it that way, but when she doesn't, Naruto and Sasuke are there to do it for her.


_All right! Another promptfic. This one was for the prompt _Love Triangle_, and it just begged to be turned into my favourite OT3._

_Ugh. A week till mocks. I'm dying, people, _dying_. These aren't even the real exams, and I'm freaking out._

_Anywaym onwards to the story! I hope you like it :D_

xXx

It was your average spring morning in Konohagakure, Fire Country; warm, not too hot and a little damp. The pre-genin were up and missing targets, the jounin were avoiding their paperwork and Haruno Sakura had just walked in on her two best friends in bed together.

Okay, so perhaps not so average.

"I'll come back later shall I?" she asked faintly as Naruto scrambled for the blankets. She wasn't sure why he did that – not like she hadn't seen both of them naked before. Just…not together.

"S-Sakura-chan," the blond stuttered, safely ensconced in the sheets. Sakura realised he'd forgotten to cover the sleeping Sasuke and tilted her head a little, absently admiring the view.

"My life," she announced, turning in the doorway and stumbling out of the room. "Is sometimes indescribably strange."

It would have been less strange, she mused, if she wasn't sleeping with both of them. Separately.

It hadn't been that bad, had it?

"I need chocolate," she decided, walking with the manner of someone who had just seen something very shocking and wasn't sure if they liked it or not. "And Ino. But not like I need chocolate. Yes. Chocolate first, then Ino." She did an about-turn and headed for the kitchen.

And this was where Sasuke found her half an hour later, staring at the half-eaten chocolate bar, a little smear on her lower lip.

Of course, Sasuke being Sasuke, he didn't notice her immediately. Rather, he made his way over to the fridge, pulled out the bottle of tomato juice and sculled straight from the bottle. Sakura would have scolded him for that if a) she hadn't been engrossed in her chocolate bar and b) anybody else in the house actually _drank_ tomato juice.

Anyway, it was only _after_ he had replaced the juice and shut the fridge door that he noticed her, savagely taking another bite out of the chocolate bar.

He blinked once, the Sasuke-equivalent of 'HOSHIT, WHERE DID _YOU_ COME FROM?'

"Sakura."

She ignored the way his deep voice sent shivers racing from the nape of her neck all the way down to her toes and concentrated on the chocolate.

A slightly pained look flickered over his face as he no doubt realised that he was going to have to do something a little more drastic than saying her name. The begrudging way in which he crouched down next to her did nothing for Sakura's state of mind.

"Do I need to kill someone?" he asked, in all seriousness. She wasn't sure if that made it funnier or not. It should have been not, but Sakura had the feeling it really wasn't.

"Not unless you're willing to commit suicide," she mumbled around her chocolate. It was too hard, she decided, sucking on the corner. The chocolate, that was, although it could have been putting up with two idiot boys as well. Thank god Sai was living with Ino and Kakashi had hooked up with Anko. She didn't think she could handle all four.

Sasuke's eyebrows winged so far up his forehead she thought they might take flight. "I…did something?" The unsaid question was _what?_

The chocolate broke off in her mouth. She waited for it to dissolve before shooting Sasuke a baleful glare. "You screwed around with Naruto!"

The eyebrows retreated, and Sasuke stood abruptly, looking distinctly unimpressed with her reasoning. Sakura scowled, slammed the chocolate down on the ground and followed him to the bathroom.

"You haven't showered yet? That's disgusting!"

She _felt_ rather than saw him roll his eyes. "I'm brushing my teeth, Sakura."

"Why are you being so…blasé about this?" she demanded. "And why are you pissy? You had sex with Naruto!"

"So did you," he replied evenly, squeezing toothpaste onto the brush. "Several times."

"Yes - but - that's different!" she spluttered.

Cue amused eyebrow raise as she glared at his mirror image.

"Because it is!" she cried in response to the unspoken question. "I mean, we have sex and Naruto and I have sex, and now with _you _and Naruto having sex, we should just move into the same room and all have sex together to save ourselves the trouble! Why don't we just do that, huh?"

Damn. She really shouldn't have put that chocolate down. Where was Ino when you needed her?

"Sakura. You're getting hysterical."

"Damn right, I'm getting hysterical! I can't think of any reasons as to why that would be a bad idea!" She shoved her hair back off her forehead and grimaced. "Why can't I think of any reasons?"

She met Sasuke's eyes in the mirror again and jumped at seeing Naruto there as well.

He was grinning widely. Of course he was.

"You asked her, then? About the three of us?"

"_What?_"

Sasuke lowered his toothbrush, apparently giving up for the time-being. "That would be a no."

Naruto frowned, obviously confused. "But--"

"Ask? _Ask?_ Ask for what? About what? Wait, what? Us? _Which _us? All of us?" Sakura pressed the palms of her hands to her eyes and stumbled blindly out of the bathroom. She seemed to be doing a lot of stumbling, but she didn't think anyone would blame her. "I need Ino," she mumbled. "More than chocolate, this time. You know what? Maybe I should become a lesbian. Things would be much easier. I wonder if Ino would be into that? It wouldn't be too hard to get rid of Sai."

"Sakura-chan?" Naruto sounded vaguely worried.

"I'm going to see Ino. You…you two stay here and don't think about threesomes."

xXx

"Ino, will you be my lesbian lover?"

Ino took one look at the woman standing in her doorway and immediately switched off the oven. "Who wants to have sex with you now?" She sucked at cooking anyway. Sai could make his own damn dinner.

"That's the problem! I'm not sure!"

Ino frowned and started to pry Sakura's fingers off the doorframe. "How can you not be sure? I would have thought it'd be pretty obvious. I mean, even _Sai_ makes it obvious, and he's a freaking social retard."

"Yeah, a social retard with no social _inhibitions._ But that's not the point! The point is, I don't know, and I'm very confused, and really, becoming a lesbian would be much easier."

"Sakura, let go of my doorframe before you break my house," Ino ordered. "And as for becoming a lesbian, I don't think that'd make things any easier. What if you met a woman like you?"

Sakura let go of the doorframe. "Oh, god."

Ino rolled her eyes, although she was careful not to let her friend see it. "Come on, sit down. I can't cook for shit, but I have Sai's homemade chocolate. It tastes pretty good, you just have to ignore the fact that they're shaped like penises."

"No! Uh…no, I'm good. I already had some chocolate. It's not helping. Or maybe it needs some time to kick in? I don't _know_."

"Sakura." Ino took the woman by the shoulders and shook her a little. "Sakura. Sit down. I will bring you penis chocolate. And then you will tell me exactly what the hell happened."

"O-okay."

Ten minutes later and Ino gave up on finding the chocolate in favour of uncurling Sakura from the foetal position.

_Jeez. It must have been someone really horrible to get her this worked up._

The thing with Sakura was that she had trouble saying no to people sometimes. Especially nice guys that were ugly. To be honest, Ino had preferred it when Sakura was shallow and said no to everyone. Maybe then she'd be able to learn to cook instead of making sure Sakura didn't do something really, really stupid.

"Okay. So, who – or what – when, where, how and why?"

"I – about half an hour ago. In the bathroom. In a really weird sort of roundabout way. I don't know why. I really, really, don't know why."

_In the bathroom?_ That made it Sasuke or Naruto. Ino frowned slightly – but only slightly, mind. Not even Sakura was worth premature wrinkling. "Why is that a problem. You've had sex with Sasuke and Naruto before."

"That's the whole problem!" Sakura wailed. "I walked in on them in bed together this morning. Naked. Together. And now everything is really, really _weird_, and Naruto said something really confusing and Sasuke didn't disagree!"

Ino blinked. "Wait. Wait. Let me get this straight. You had sex with Naruto. You had sex with Sasuke. They had sex with each other."

"Exactly."

"So…why don't you all just move into one room and have a freaking orgy?"

Sakura hugged her knees. "Why is everybody saying that? _I _said that."

"So why not?"

"I don't have a reason. Well, not a good reason. In fact, it's really, really stupid and selfish."

"Sakura, you're a woman. You're never stupid, and you're entitled to being selfish. Did you misplace the rulebook or something? What's your reason?"

Ino looked at her friend curled up on the couch (red, because it was a colour both Sai and Ino hated and they couldn't decide on one they liked), hugging her legs and chin resting on her knees, and realised that this was perhaps a little more serious than a roll between the sheets with two extremely hot guys.

"Because I love Naruto."

_Oh, shit._

"And I love Sasuke."

_Oh, __**shit.**_

"Like…forever love?" Ino asked cautiously, before inwardly mocking herself for her poor choice of words. _Forever love? Jeez._

Sakura nodded, looking pathetic. "Like forever love. And I can't choose between the two of them, and if we do…do…"

"A threesome?"

Sakura blushed furiously, but nodded again. "Yeah. If that happens, I don't think…I don't think I'd be able to handle it when it fell apart, you know?"

Ino mulled this over. Considering the way Naruto and Sasuke looked at each other, and the way they both looked at Sakura, she wasn't seeing a problem. Then again, Sakura always had been particularly blind when it came to people being in love with her. Unlike Ino, who chose to assume that _everyone _was in love with her. "Who says it has to?

"Uh, common decency?" Her lips twisted into a sad smirk. "It's sex, Ino. No matter how good it always comes to an end."

These rather dramatic words were punctuated by the front door slamming open.. Sakura squeaked and threw herself under the coffee table as Naruto burst into the house.

"Naruto!" Ino yelled. "What the hell?"

"Ino, Ino, have you seen Sakura-chan?"

Ino frowned. "She's under the table."

"Ino!"

"You have to face these things sooner of later, Forehead. I'm just making sure it's sooner." Ino placed her hands on her hips as Sasuke entered the house with a little more decorum. "Get out from under my coffee table."

"Make me."

Ino started forming seals. "If you insist."

"All right, all right!" A scarred hand popped out in a placating gesture, quickly followed by the rest of Sakura. "See? I'm out." She cleared her throat and nervously crossed her arms over her chest as she looked at her boys. "Well?"

Ino pointed at her poor, abused door. "Out."

"What? But - moral support!" Sakura choked.

"There are not _morals_ involved on what you lot need to discuss, and your 'discussions' usually end up with the destruction of private property. _Out_," she insisted. "Find a training ground or something."

"I hate you," Sakura announced as Naruto and Sasuke idled awkwardly by the door.

Ino smirked and herded Sakura towards her team mates, both of whom were looking faintly dumbstruck in their own way. "No you don't. You're just saying that to make me feel better."

xXx

Usually when they walked together, Naruto was in the middle. They talked loudly, except for Sasuke who would offer a particularly emphatic 'hn' every now and then. But it was easy and it was comfortable and it was nothing like how they were walking now. For a start, Sakura was tucked in the middle and feeling increasingly claustrophobic, despite barely touching either of the men. Naruto kept opening his mouth and then clicking it shut, which was weird (the shutting, not the opening), and Sasuke was walking tense with none of his usual confidence

It wasn't them. Sakura wasn't sure who it was, but it wasn't them.

"I don't understand," she said quietly, undercutting another of Naruto's abortive attempts at talking. "I don't understand what you _want_."

They were at the training ground now, she realised, _their_ training ground. Gritting her teeth, she broke away from the two men and clenched her fist, pumping it with chakra and driving it straight into the ground. The earth split open with a roar, and Sakura flipped her hair back, raising an eyebrow at her team mates. "Well?"

She blinked, and they were gone.

Ino was right – the former Team Seven _did_ have a tendency to destroy things at the best of times, and this was not the best of times. When they were trying to work things out, or god forbid, having an argument, ANBU were called in to contain the area. Stronger than the Sannin, no one ever tried to actually _stop_ them.

Light burns danced over Sakura's skin as Sasuke gripped her with Chidori-laced fingers. She gritted her teeth and cracked his rib, hissing as her body was studded with Naruto's kunai.

There was no going easy between the three of them.

"You were meant to dodge!" He caught her punch and twisted her roughly around, trapping her arms.

"I was busy!" she cried, stamping on his foot and tossing him over her shoulder and into Sasuke. The dark-haired man caught the blond, but Sakura was already on top of them, shedding kunai.

"You're so annoying!" she yelled, laying into them. "How dare you! How dare you offer everything I've ever wanted, and have it only be about _sex?_"

The change in the air was instant. Sakura sensed it from both Naruto and Sasuke, pained endurance to complete confusion, and she faltered, stumbling. She would have fallen if not for her boys, both of them lunging forwards and grabbing an arm.

Silence. None of them were even out of breath, eyeballing each other as they were. Finally, Sasuke of all people opened his mouth.

"What?"

"What do you mean, _what?_" Sakura demanded.

"We're not—" Naruto broke off and tried again. "It's not about the _sex_, Sakura."

_Don't hope, you idiot,_ Sakura told the suddenly warm feeling in her chest. _You know how stupid it is to hope when it comes to these two._

"Oh, really." It wasn't a question, she was so obviously disbelieving.

"Yes, really!" Naruto sounded surprisingly hurt. "Jeez, Sakura, why do you always believe the worst in us?"

She wrenched her arms from the both of them and stormed away a few paces. "Gee I wonder. Maybe because every time I've ever hoped for something from either of you, you have always, _always_ let me down!" She turned to Sasuke and shoved him in the chest. "You! You _left_, and then you pretended that you didn't care! You _lied_, and I know you apologised, and you're sorry, but I still hate what you did, and why on earth should I trust you not to do it again?" She whirled around and poked her finger in Naruto's face. He reeled back slightly, shocked. "And you! You left me behind just like he did! Always leaving, training, moving closer to Sasuke because you were moving farther away from me! You even _knocked me out _in the end so that you could go off and have your epic battle, and I don't _care_ if it was to keep me safe, because that was never what I wanted."

Sakura was crying now, and she hated herself for it.

"Sakura—"

"I was never good enough for the two of you." She ignored Sasuke, speaking through him, not quite loud enough for it to be over the top of him. "And then finally – _finally_ – when we were all back in the same place, I had the both of you. Sure, it was at different times and I couldn't speak about it to the either of you, but I figured that was as good as it was going to get."

This time, Naruto tried to interrupt.

"I'm not done yet!" she yelled. "You - the both of you - had to go and ruin everything, like you always do, and make it about you. Just when, for once in my life, I thought things could be about _me_!"

Of course, that wasn't the half of it. She wasn't really so selfish as to deny them time on their own, but what Sakura wanted, more than anything, was for it to be about _them._ For it to be NaruSasuSaku instead of various pairings, and what seeing the two men in bed together that morning had done, unforgivably, was make her hope.

Sakura hated hope. Hated feeling it, and knowing, inevitably, that she was going to be let down.

She scrubbed at her face and sniffed pathetically, rearranging her features so she appeared a little more composed. "Okay," she said quietly. "I'm done now."

Sasuke and Naruto looked floored.

"Sakura…"

"_What_, Naruto?" She had been expecting him to speak, which was why it took her a few seconds to figure out that it was, in fact, Sasuke who had opened his mouth. "Oh. Sasu--"

She stuttered to a stop as, without saying a further word, the dark-haired man stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her.

He was tense. It was awkward. But nonetheless, Uchiha Sasuke was hugging her, had initiated the hugging of her and was now, very uneasily, not moving.

It took her a moment to realise that she hadn't actually done anything in response. It took even longer to realise that he didn't want her to. There was no expectation in the gesture, not even from Naruto, who miraculously, hadn't said a word. Slowly, Sakura relaxed into the hug. Her head dropped onto Sasuke's shoulder and she slid her hands along his waist, tentatively hugging him back as carefully, both of them relaxed.

It was then, of course, that Naruto chose to open his mouth.

"Group hug!" he cried, and leapt on them.

Uzumaki Naruto: Ruiner of Moments.

Sakura shrieked as they hit the ground in a tangle of limbs, then started to laugh at the look of absolute outrage on Sasuke's face.

"Naruto," he growled. "I was just--"

Naruto leaned over and kissed him. It turned out that whatever Sasuke had been about to start bitching about hadn't been all that important after all.

"See?" Sakura demanded, squished as she was between the two men. She wriggled around a little, trying to get the elbow out of her back. "This is exactly what--mmpf!"

Naruto, trying to smirk and failing, broke off the kiss with Sasuke and twisted to continue it with Sakura. She melted into it until Sasuke shifted and the elbow dug further into her back. She broke the kiss with a cry as the appendage nailed one of the kunai wounds.

"Damn it!" Sakura jerked away from Naruto's attempt at a follow up kiss, and then had to roll out from between her boys at Sasuke tried to get some. "This - this doesn't get solved with kissing!" she insisted. "This gets solved with talking."

Naruto and Sasuke exchanged a look that so obviously read 'Sakura's being an idiot' that she wondered briefly why they didn't just say it out loud. Her wounds throbbed slightly, and she glared, forming a few seals that healed her without effort. Her team mates could deal with the pain a little longer.

"Well, if you'd let us talk in the first place, Sakura, and not just disappeared and then started yelling, maybe--"

"This gets solved with talking," Sasuke agreed over Naruto's babble. Sakura called it babble because if was anything else, that meant she had to listen to it, and if she had to listen to it, she had the feeling he'd be right.

"Right." Sakura waited, but neither of them spoke. "Well?"

"Sakura-chan," Naruto whined, scratching at his nose. His wounds were already healing. Bastard. "You know I'm not good with words, and Sasuke-bastard here barely speaks when he _doesn't_ want to tell you he loves you."

Sakura's eyebrows shot up somewhere beneath her fringe, and she wasn't sure if they were going to come down again.

"Idiot," Sasuke muttered under his breath, moving gingerly into a sitting position. Sakura got an attack of the guilt-twinge and shuffled over, hands glowing with healing chakra.

"_Do_ you love me?" she asked softly, sliding his shirt up. "In a non-team mate and or friend way?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes, jaw clenching slightly as she prodded at his rib. "Perh--" He hissed as she poked harder. "…Yes."

"Right." She frowned. The rib didn't appear to be broken, but it was best to make sure. "What about Naruto?"

"What _about_ Naru - Sakura. The rib is not broken. Stop poking at it."

Naruto, previously all geared up and ready to get offended, laughed as Sakura poked at Sasuke again.

"This gets solved with talking," Sakura reiterated. "So talk. Do you love Naruto like you love me?" She bit her lip, concentrating on healing the wound. If she didn't think about what was happening, perhaps it wouldn't go away?

"Why do I have to go--" Sasuke cut himself off abruptly. "Sakura. That tickles."

She grinned up at him from behind her fringe. "I know."

"Teme!" Naruto wailed. "Answer the question!"

"Tch. Dobe. It's a yes." The words '_and how could you have thought any different' _went unsaid.

Naruto's answering grin was almost blinding in his enthusiasm as Sakura started to check the rest of Sasuke's ribs - purely for medical reasons, of course.

"See, that's good! And I love you, Sakura-chan, and I love him, so all that's really important is you!" And he smiled at her like it was really that simple.

Sakura found that grin hard to look at, so she returned to Sasuke's chest, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she healed a few errant bruises.

_Isn't this what you want?_

_It's exactly what I want._

_So why aren't you going for it?_

_Because…_

She had a reason, and it was a damn good one. She didn't want to take the chance that they'd leave her behind again.

But--

Sakura had her own skills now. She was a Sage, like her team mates and master before her, and if Naruto and Sasuke ever tried to leave her behind again, she was fully capable of dragging them back. She just didn't want to have to.

"If either of you--" she started, casually enough. "--ever try to leave me behind again, you know I'll never forgive you, right?"

Of course, if it fell through, that was another story. Sakura wasn't quite _that_ masochistic.

Naruto's grin widened as she looked up at him. "We're not gonna leave you behind, Sakura."

"Hn."

She pursed her lips and surveyed the both of them, sliding her hands a little reluctantly from Sasuke's chest as she finished the healing.

"Hmm." The woman stood and stretched, enjoying the 'pop' of everything sliding back into place. "I'll think about it."

Silence. Sakura hid a smirk as she sauntered off.

"Sakura!"

She didn't think it was going to fall through.

xXx

_This…turned out one hell of a lot longer than I thought it was going to be. Something like 4000 words._

_Anyway, thanks for reading, and I do hope you enjoyed it!_


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